Here's my What If...
What if the story books were wrong (or altered)...
Life shaping exists... the races are altered.. Psionics comes into play... Magic is brought into play.. oh wait.. what if magic was around before Life shaping?? What if it were a precoursor to life shaping?? Something more primal and less controllable..
What If Psionics were an aberation, a mutation, something brought out by eons of magic and life shaping... It has no effect on the immediate environment, but who knows what effect it may have on a species over centuries... (what if the Dwarves Borys faught were like those in other campaign worlds.. only now after centuries, they are twisted to the type found on Athas today...) And what if this plague known as psionics, caused the Thri-Kreen to become sentient??
And what if the Brown Plague.. which wiped out an age... was really a psychic phenomenon.. that existed primarily in the minds of the "cultured" halflings of the Age? And unable to deal with this influence in their untrained minds.. they became insane.. and used their life shaping abilities (and newly gained psionic talents) to attack and harm the very planet they gained nourishment from.. The Pristine Tower, rather than a stand against the dying of an age.. was a training facility, to learn to harness this new power of psionics, which still twisted the minds of its users.. and to protect themselves from its mutating qualities, they saught to contain it within themselves.. by transforming their bodies they hoped to prevent it from mutating into something that would affect the other halflings of the age.. but alas.. it was merely a matter of time.. and now.. every creature on Athas has the psionic plague.. some seek to harness it, some unwittingly use it.. but in the end.. it will mutate all of athas... (and the dolphins will rule
... of course, it could be ever patient long lived planar hopping insane psionic dolphins who are responsible for the death and restructuring of this world ;) )(and the dolphins will rule
No they won't. They'll just leave and thank us for all the fish.
Here's my crazy idea. Long, long ago, even before the Blue Age, Athas had gods. At some point, Athas was invaded by entities that fed on magic. This was a threat that the gods were fighting against and losing. As a last ditch effort, the gods created the grey, which caused these entities to go dormant and then finally, put themselves to sleep, to awaken later at a time when those entities had starved themselves from the lack of magic. This however takes a really long time. Tens of thousands of years. And a lot can happen in the interim.
I also like the theory of the Rhulisti warring with the plane spanning Illithid Empire early in the Blue Age.
Maybe not an odd idea, but I'd like to think that the Rhulisti/Nature Benders shaped the primitive kreen of the Blue Age in to the Kreen of present day Athas.
I also like the theory of the Rhulisti warring with the plane spanning Illithid Empire early in the Blue Age.
And a few captured interrogated slaves is where the ilithids get their life shaping tech from
, and the reason the halflings of the forest ridge have a cloak that defends against psionics, is because of that long ago war. And a few captured interrogated slaves is where the ilithids get their life shaping tech from
I like Seeker's theory of that the Rhulisti captured some illithid spawn and conducted research on them. This is what may have first attracted the mindflayer empire to turn its attentions to Athas.
Guthay is a big egg that hold the unique god of Athas who is in dormant state. When he will awake, he will break trough Guthay and take back his power on Athasian people. He is really huge (like Ral) but I'm not sure wich form he will have.
Here an idea I toyed with;
Guthay is a big egg that hold the unique god of Athas who is in dormant state. When he will awake, he will break trough Guthay and take back his power on Athasian people. He is really huge (like Ral) but I'm not sure wich form he will have.
Thats pretty wild.
Speaking of the moons.
I briefly considered an idea for one of my campaigns that a group of psions fled to one of Athas' moons (never really went into which one) to escape the Cleansing Wars. During their time there they developed their mental powers beyond normal Athasian standards and their offspring evolved into this super psionic race.
They recently have started to teleport down to Athas to re-explore their former world and see what has changed. It was meant to be a "alien encounter" :88E: type of idea with them abducting PC's to study them (**** probe anyone?). I never really developed it further than that.
Should the moons have an atmosphere too??
I don't know if this had been explored or not. What if Athas itself was actually the moon to Ral or Guthay instead of the other way around? Meaning that Ral or Guthay were planets and Athas was its moon.
You know? I really like that idea
it would mean that either it's far away (comparatively) or it's really big in the night sky! Do you think a decent telescope or clairsentient power could let you explore its surface??Oh! What if Athas is the moon to it, and it's a totaly completely utterly entirely dead world!! Consumed by the warbringer himself!! :D
Now, it must be pretty cool to be on Ral or Guthay and watch Athas dying slowly (Blue age/Green age/Sorcerer Age). You have a blue planet that slowly turn to brown. Think of an elder naturebender that escaped on Ral and watch Atahs since then.
A meeting between the PC's (one of whom would be great as a halfling psion) and the halfling who slept/observed from the moon that whole time would be a most interesting adventure hook.. if he were a nature master he could become, like, thier Xavier of the X-men, give them missions, tell them stuff they don't know, (or whatever other wise group leader you can think of) and send them on missions, supercharge them and even perhaps learn of their abilities and design life shaped items to improve upon them.. (what life shaped artifact would you design for a prenatal avangion?? a fully formed one? or even simply for a halfling psion to boost his abilities?? maybe something that grants him the ability to life shape psionically? or tend to life shaped items???)